Let’s talk about the kind of “terrorism” that’s a hell of a lot more likely to affect you and your family: corporate responsibility without accountability. The “deregulation” offensive led by people like governor of Texas G.W. Bush and the right wing corporatists, including Obama, is responsible for killing large numbers of workers, a disturbingly increasing number. Miners, plant workers, the regulations to ensure worker safety are little more than a joke after decades of erosion and deal making in the slimy halls of power.
“We know that the EPA, back in 2006, cited West Fertilizer for not having an emergency risk management plan. That is, a dangerous and explosion-prone plant that was using a hazardous chemical in large quantities, and that was storing highly explosive material also in large quantities, had made little or no effort to assess the risks of what it was doing. Indeed, it has been reported that the company had assured the EPA, in response to the complaint, that there was “no risk” of an explosion at the plant! An AP article reports that the company, five years after being cited for lacking a risk plan, did file one with the EPA, but that the report claimed the company “…was not handling flammable materials and did not have sprinklers, water-deluge systems, blast walls, fire walls or other safety mechanisms in place at the plant.”
“After all, it was Obama’s Justice Department that in December 2011 settled the case of the April 2010 Massey Energy Upper Big Branch explosion, which killed 29 miners, with a “non prosecution agreement.”
Outrageously, the Justice Department said it would not criminally prosecute Massey even though the Labor Department concluded that Massey’s “unlawful policies and practices” were the “root cause of this tragedy.”
“The documentary How To Go Out Of Your Mind – The LSD Crisis was made for Canadian TV in 1966 and features some great footage of Tim Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Meltzner on the grounds of the legendary Millbrook estate.”
CBC does a fair job investigating the new epidemic of acid spreading through the land in 1966. Timothy Leary, the high priest of acid, is given an open mic to explain the drug, his view of it, and many individuals are shown and asked to comment.
Leary’s warnings about the drug near the midpoint are particularly noteworthy. In other parts of the video, Leary drifts off to mysticism and religion, abandoning science in favor of a cultish spiritualism.
Be warned young grasshopper. LSD is not like other drugs. It has the capacity to alter your brain, the actual neurons, the actual connections inside. Leary sees the positives of this experience while dismissing a large number of negatives. This is indeed risky experimentation, and having a babysitter or minder cannot shield the brain cells themselves from the effects of the acid.
The other side of the coin is seen in one Syd Barrett, the founding member of Pink Floyd. Syd was the creative center and driving personality of the band up until the early 1970s. He suddenly fell in with an acid cult of sorts and must have taken too large a dose. He was forever brain damaged beyond repair and seemingly beyond recognition.
Syd Barrett (before)
A shocking moment is recounted by David Gilmore and Roger Waters, as they finished up a recording session on Dark Side of the Moon (1973), an homage to the casualty Barrett. A large, bald obese man stumbled into the sound booth as they mixed one of the tracks. Nobody knew who it was, and started asking around who let the stranger in. When Gilmore and Waters realized that this was Syd, they were shocked to their cores, devastated.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is a fully corrupt body which mishandles the safety of the nation regularly even as it claims a monopoly on all safety matters. It has ignored the concerns of state governments and kept obsolete dilapidated nuclear reactors operating indefinitely. The corruption is so glaringly awful the the UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS has published a detailed study on this abomination.
Note: Send these videos to anyone and everyone, particularly those in California. If you live in California, and you do not support the Prop 37 GMO mandatory labeling law initiative then you are simply an ignorant fool.
The nuclear beast reels in confusion. Stopped cold in Germany, then in Japan where he had inflicted so much damage, the Italians have now risen up to put a halt to the big reckless lizard’s reign of terror. Even the Chinese remain on the fence, waiting out this latest monster appearance to observe just how far he’ll go this time.
Born from the uncontrolled atomic experiments of our ancestors, Godzilla remains an ever present threat to human life. He’s been spotted in Southern California near an earthquake fault. Sightings just north of New York City caused some stir when one of the comandeered 9/11 passenger jets flew right over his head.
It seems that weekly some signs of the giant monster’s shenanigans cause incidents and shut down reactors as our valiant Homer J. Simpsons struggle to keep forty and fifty year old machinery on-line, and the great radioactive reptile at bay.
And still the delusional mad scientists make apologies for their creation’s lust for destruction. He’s really not such a bad guy they tell us, once you get to know him. Your kids probably won’t die. The big lumbering, fire breathing juggernaut just loves kids, and what a show he puts on. He even provides much needed jobs — for them — the delusional mad scientists of unnecessary risk and bottomless lies.
But Godzilla and his grandson Fukushima seem to have an agenda all their own. They seem quite oblivious to the blather and trolling of the nuclear apologist crowd. Despite the massive PR efforts of the entrenched interests, the monsters keep breaking out of their cages and flattening Tokyo, or at least threatening its population with one hell of a roar (that is if you wire your geiger counter through an amplifier).
With Italy’s popular referendum overwhelmingly rejecting the monster, he’s no-doubt going to be searching for more lizard friendly lands to call his home. Will Godzilla be nesting near your home? Find out in the sequel. There’s always a sequel, as long as you people keep buying these tickets.
In the end, you moviegoers will have to make your preferences known and say no more Godzilla sequels. Not here, not anywhere.
The mad scientists can put their talents to work building truly “clean” energy, and stop trying to pass off their raging, poison spewing, maniacal beast as some kind of philanthropic girl scout. That plot line is far too ludicrous for any audience to maintain its suspension of disbelief.
The next installment of my investigation of the Chernobyl catastrophe shows how the disaster occurred, the results, the inside stories of the people on the scene fighting to save Europe from a chain reaction and potential nuclear detonation many time larger than Hiroshima. The radioactive contamination, and the way the authorities downplay it, has direct relevance to what is happening today in Japan.
In the documentary film The Battle of Chernobyl (Thomas Johnson, 2006), we see how military and miners were not counted by the “official” death tolls currently floating around from the UN and IAEA. The film, after interviewing numerous key first person sources tells that 600 of the helicopter pilots who flew over the reactor died. Another 2,500 miners who dug a tunnel and room below the reactor died. Other military died, as well as people left behind in the evacuations.
On top of that, the cases of illness skyrocketed throughout the region.
The Chernobyl Syndrome:
“We’ve all got a bunch of symptoms, heart, stomach, liver, kidneys, nervous system. Our whole bodies were radically upset by the radiation and chemical exposure.”
“According to the military, of the 500,000 Chernobyl liquidators 20,000 have already died. 200,000 are officially disabled.”
Dr. Yuri Badazhevsky shows his experimental findings concerning cesium contamination of food:
“Look what happened when the mother was contaminated with cesium (137) during pregnancy… Look how many deformations, hairless, missing eyes, deformed skulls.”
“…I was horrified by how many deformed embryos developed in animals that had eaten cesium contaminated food. I obtained a horrible number of deformations in two weeks.”
Four out of five children in Belarus are considered ill.
“In Belorussia, 300,000 children are currently suffering the consequences of contamination.”
Mikhail Gorbachev laments the catastrophe and wishes for clean, safe alternative forms of energy, on camera.
“How many years is this going to go on? 800 years? 800 years! Until the second Jesus Christ is born, until he returns? Yes.”
-Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union
On April 26, 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian city of Pripyat exploded and began spewing radioactive smoke and gas. Firemen discovered that no amount of water could extinguish the blaze. More than 40,000 residents in the immediate area were exposed to fallout 100 times greater than that from the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. But the most serious nuclear accident in history had only begun.
Based on top-secret government documents that came to light only in the Nineties, during the collapse of the Soviet Union, THE BATTLE OF CHERNOBYL reveals a systematic cover-up of the true scope of the disaster, including the possibility of a secondary explosion of the still-smoldering magma, whose radioactive clouds would have rendered Europe uninhabitable. The government effort to prevent such a catastrophe lasted for more than seven months and sacrificed the lives of thousands of soldiers, miners and other workers.
THE BATTLE OF CHERNOBYL dramatically chronicles the series of harrowing efforts to stop the nuclear chain reaction and prevent a second explosion, to “liquidate” the radioactivity, and to seal off the ruined reactor under a mammoth “sarcophagus.” These nerve-racking events are recounted through newly available films, videos and photos taken in and around the plant, computer animation, and interviews with participants and eyewitnesses, many of whom were exposed to radiation, including government and military leaders, scientists, workers, journalists, doctors, and Pripyat refugees.
The consequences of this catastrophe continue today, with thousands of disabled survivors suffering from the “Chernobyl syndrome” of radiation-related illnesses, and the urgent need to replace the hastily-constructed and now crumbling sarcophagus over the still-contaminated reactor. As this remarkable film makes clear, THE BATTLE OF CHERNOBYL is far from over.
“Truly powerful and moving… contains an impressive amount of incredibly powerful and valuable archival information, as well as some revealing interviews.”—Vitaly Cheernetsky, KinoKultura: New Russian Cinema
“An epic documentary.”—Variety
“Powerful… an important film… Because so much of the story has been forgotten or concealed, the film’s momentum never flags.”—American Society for Environmental History Newsletter
“A mind boggling piece of work… peerless… painstakingly researched… This documentary has earned the highest recommendation for its clarity, its persistent revelations, and comprehensive examination of this dismal crisis.” —Michael J. Coffta, Educational Media Reviews Online
Best History & Biography Program, 2007 Banff World Television Awards
Best Documentary, 2006 Prix Italia Festival
